The world this week

The world this year
KAL’s cartoon
Leaders


The crucible
What 2022 meant for the world
Some years bring disorder, others a resolution. This one asked questions

Inspiration nation
Our country of the year for 2022 can only be Ukraine
For the heroism of its people, and for standing up to a bully

Twitter
Elon Musk’s $44bn education on free speech
He has had a crash course in the trade-offs in protecting free expression

After the storm
The year of the rate shock
Financial markets are adjusting to higher rates. That does not mean the chaos is over

The laws of nature
Why climate change is intimately tied to biodiversity
There is a financial case for investing in biodiversity

Letters

On needle-exchange programmes, Kenya, the EU, the Titanic, street names, job titles
Letters to the editor
By Invitation


Biotechnology
Jaime Yassif on the need for better safeguarding of bioscience
Asia


Slum-mop billionaire
Can India’s richest man remake Mumbai’s biggest slum?
Dumplings and skewers
Japan’s cities are being remade for an ageing population
Moving house
Extreme weather is making parts of Australia uninhabitable
China


A pandemic stress test
A wave of covid-19 reveals flaws in China’s health system
Way back when
Bertrand Russell and “The Problem of China”
United States


Care or confinement
Is forced treatment for the mentally ill ever humane?
Move along
Donald Trump’s popularity with Republican voters is sinking
Disorder on the border
Title 42 might be nixed
Lexington
Free speech is not in peril in America
Middle East & Africa


Finding faith in the fund
Ghana has struck a preliminary IMF deal and halted debt payments
Urbanisation gone nuts
What the price of Zanzibari coconuts says about African development
One Saied-ed
A farcical election pushes Tunisia towards one-man rule

The Americas


Man bites watchdog
An “electoral reform” in Mexico will make elections less safe
It was messy, but it’s Messi
Argentina clinch the World Cup after beating France on penalties
Europe


Christmas in Kharkiv
A Ukrainian city celebrates despite the cold and the Russians
No room in the middle
Pope Francis has failed to be a spiritual mediator in Ukraine
The last taboo
France starts a debate on legalising assisted dying
Balkan barricades
Kosovo and Serbia are on the verge of conflict again
Charlemagne
Why Europe’s traditional foods are not always what they seem
Britain


The new Britons
The children of Britain’s eastern European immigrants are changing the country
Gift-giving economics
The inefficiencies of Christmas
Nursing a grievance
British nurses launch unprecedented strikes
Bagehot
Westminster’s other cathedral
Christmas Specials


Time lords
In a corner of Java live the Amish of Indonesia
All uncreated men are equal
Should we care about people who need never exist?
A tale of oil and rubber
What Brazil’s 19th-century rubber crash could teach today’s oil drillers
Use your loaf
How food affects the mind, as well as the body
Puppy love
What makes certain dogs popular in certain countries
When money dies
The great inflation of the 1500s is echoing eerily today
City planning
The decline of the city grid
Take me out to the ball game
Why cricket and America are made for each other
The wibbly-wobbly circle of life
Deadly, dirty, indispensable: the nitrogen industry has changed the world
The weight of the world
The economics of thinness
The myth of the holy cow
India’s movement to protect cows is rooted in politics, not religion
Complex saviours
The new tech worldview
The three knife trilogy
Emigrants from a small corner of China are making an outsize mark abroad
Hot spot
How will the haj change as global temperatures rise?
Taking the Mickey
A treasure trove of Hollywood intellectual property is heading for the public domain
Through a crystal curtain
The Chinese celebrate Tang poetry as a pinnacle of their culture
Secrets of the shallows
A megadrought has revealed a possible mafia murder mystery
Business


When brown meets green
Why the Gulf’s oil powers are betting on clean energy
Parting of the clouds
Airlines are closing in on their pre-covid heights
More Sino-American business tensions
America tries to nobble China’s tech industry. Again
Bartleby
How to make the most of LinkedIn
Schumpeter
How Bernard Arnault became the world’s richest person
Finance & economics


Top of the charts
2022’s unlikely economic winners
To protect and to swerve
China’s leaders ponder an economy without lockdowns—or crackdowns
Robots and jobs
The pandemic and the triumph of the Luddites
No time like the present
The Bank of Japan shocks investors
Buttonwood
India’s stockmarkets are roaring. They also have serious faults
Free exchange
The Federal Reserve’s great anti-hero deserves a second look
Science & technology


Information technology
Artificial intelligence and the rise of optical computing
Optical cryptography
A better way to process encrypted data
Smart coatings
A golden sandwich that demists your windscreen
Culture


Heart of darkness
Francisco Goya’s vision of war is powerful and urgent
A family affair
A delightful world history, told through influential families
Back Story
The year of the underdogs
Economic & financial indicators

Indicators
Economic data, commodities and markets
Graphic detail


The year of Ukraine
War replaces disease as the world’s most newsworthy subject
The Economist explains


The Economist explains
Is Russia running out of ammunition?
The Economist explains
How to understand 2022 in memes
Obituary


The endless quest
Daniel Brush’s drive to understand beauty led him to the life of a hermit